The city of New York is approximately 305 square miles. The island of Manhattan is approximately 23 square miles. The area south of 14th Street is, just maybe, what? One-sixth of that? One-eigth? Well, apparently, things happen in those remaining 282 square miles. Things worth going out to. Things that involve skateboarding.

Normally, I would not have the audacity to advocate venturing out anywhere north of Union Square, but this event is actually worth the trip on the 7 to a remote, primitive part of New York City that’s between the devil and the deep blue sea. It is being held at The Queens Museum of Art on this coming Friday, June 4th, starting at 7:15 P.M. The standout attraction of the Queens Museum of Art is a 9,335 square foot model of New York (yes, it includes those other four boroughs), that was built in 1964 by Robert Moses for the World’s Fair. It has the full city grid on it, and 895,000 individual structures updated up to 1992. Some family that owns some sort of basketball team is holding some contest nobody has ever heard of in Flushing Meadows this coming weekend, and in honor of that event, the panorama is going to be decked out and marked with over one-hundred skate spots found throughout the city, by exact pin-point location. Rodney Torres will be giving a talk on skateboarding in New York to accompany the skateboard-ified version of the panorama.

Following Rodney’s talk, at around 8 p.m., there are going to be several video screenings, the most of which you can gather from the above flyer. The overall highlight would have to be the premiere of Howard Glover’s PRE2K video, which is worth the trip alone.

Aside from that, there’s free Monster Energy Drinks (Marquez co-signed, “That shit has got me through so many miles on the interstate”), free Vitamin Water (sorry alcoholics, no free liquor), and 200 free tickets being given away for the Maloof contest (100 for Saturday, 100 for Sunday.)

The Queens Museum of Art is located just to the right on the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows / Corona Park. Take the 7 to Willet’s Point (is the stop still called Shea Stadium or is that done for?), walk across the wooden platform into the park, head towards the Unisphere, and the rest is self-explantory.

Chris Keefe did an interview with Alex Corporan regarding his new book, Full Bleed, which is being released in New York on June 6th (only available at DQM), and worldwide/Amazon on August 10. The book is a collection of various photographers’ work surrounding skateboarders in New York, and not merely a one-photographer type deal a la Out & About. Features work by Spike Jonze, Bryce Kanights, Pepe Torres and Glen E. Friedman. There’s a really good portion of the interview where they talk about skating World Trade back when the Towers were still up. (The days when the Jersey crew & I would take the PATH from Hoboken to try to learn 5050s on the stone benches and grind around the wavy curbs right by them don’t really seem that long ago either.)

I haven’t posted some old photos in a while, and it’s cold as hell out, so this is a particularly appropriate way to update for the time being, or at least until the highs begin to be above 40 degrees again.